18th Annual International Marlin Tournament in El Salvador

Well once again I got the invite to join Paco Saca and his sons in the 18th International Marlin Tournament in El Salvador! Bart and I made are way down to Bahia Del Sol Marina and Hotel. We were greeted by Mauricio a Rep for Flora De Cana rum. They sponsor the tournament and others in Central and South America. He explained various ages of rum and the process of how it’s made. We then proceeded to “Taste test” We all had a nice testing! We ate some dinner and they brought us Desert. Bart grabbed the bottle of 18 year old rum and drenched it in Flan [...]

My brother and I had the chance to fish with some guys that REALLY have their game together on “bait and switch” marlin fishing on the north drop off St. Thomas. We fished two days and managed to go three for four on blues and even found a white for a bit of variety.

“Haven’t posted in a while, but here’s a video and some pictures of some fish shot in the Bahamas over two trips this summer. We forgot the Go Pro’s on the second trip when we got to break in our new Invincible, but at least we got some good fish. Check out the video and let me know what you think, watch in HD!”

Lindsey Pankey sent in this photo from a recent trip to the Bahamas. After locating the birds in the northwest channel, a miles north of Little Issac, they began to chunk the yellowfin tuna that were in a feeding frenzy underneath. All the tuna were roughly 60-to 70-pounds. Scott Nichols is on the left, Taylor Pankey on right.

Chunkin’ Tuna off Lucaya Monty White of Team Fin-Addict went on a tuna trip for the 4th of July weekend. He had this to say about the trip: “It was an active few days, fish and birds everywere. We were trolling and chunking tuna under the birds circling around Tuna Canyon off Lucaya, Bahamas. We landed 10 dolphin, over 45 tuna, and lost several more to big brown reef sharks that had to be over 350 pounds. Mike Haun caught a 79 and 68 pound yellowfin tuna, Tim Johnson landed a 50 pound yellowfin, and we had a few around 40 hit the deck along with many smaller tuna of both black and yellow sorts. Another epic trip with great friends!” Here are some pictures from the trip:

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Cleanin’ Up West End

Florida Sportsman member: Blue Devil

We had a great time fishing out of Blue Marlin Cove this past weekend. It was our first trip over there so a big thank you to the forum members who gave me some great advice on planning for and fishing that area. We were focused on snappers, groupers and hogfish and worked hard to find them. Most of the muttons and strawberries and about half the hogs were caught very close to BMC. The tails and the rest of the hogs were caught a few mile North of Memory. Marvin at BMC was a great help and put in the general vicinity of the fish.

Bimini, Bahamas. “I caught one and thought I was going to throw up,” said Tom Gordon. These fish aren’t snapper. “We were fishing yellowtail off the gingerbreads and decided to go look for birds around 2 p.m. in the afternoon on June 14th. About five miles from the yellowtail spot we saw some birds, stopped the boat, threw a couple of baits out and had a double header of yellowfin on within 5 minutes. We found the birds using binoculars (no radar). Ran over to them close, not right into them, just close. Had cut sardines into 3rds and had in a bucket. Just started chucking 2-3 pieces every 20 seconds or so. The tuna found us. Once we saw the tuna we put out some heavy iron with 60 foot of 50 lb fluorocarbon leader, braided line. Worst part of it is we didn’t have any rod belts. Tuna was really not on our target list. We were just messing around. Try catching one with an International without using a rod belt. We got mugged by 5 boats when we had on the double header. Big mistake, those boats steamed right into the birds. Then it looked like most tried trolling. None hooked up and they eventually left. We went on to catch 3 more and could have caught more (enough is enough, like I said catching one made me want to throw up). I think the key was to not spook the fish by running into them. It was a total Cinderella story! Ended up catching five in two hours and quit. We left them there biting. I don’t think we will ever get that lucky again. It was stupid easy and just total blind luck. A truly amazing day.”

The Endless Summer

Florida Sportsman member: JohnnyBlack

The Endless Summer started yesterday at 4:30 am as we pushed out of Boca inlet on “The Soundboy”, ChadJ55′s boat here on the forum. The itinerary for my trip this month will be 5 days in West End Bahamas at Blue Marlin Cove resort then a short one day back here in the states and then it’s off to Treasure Cay in the Abaco’s for 2 weeks to Marlin fish the Bahamas Billfish Championship on “The Zinn Dog”, Captain Jeff Maggio’s boat out of Ft. Lauderdale [...]

I was invitied to cross on a buddy’s boat and we left Saturday a.m. for West End after loading up on some livies. We had a nice crossing and encountered a pod of pilot whales and shortly after, we came across a pod of bottlenose. The porpoise hung right at the boat and checked us out for awhile. It was very cool. We then continued on and cleared at OBB which was quick and easy. We then headed out in search of birds. We did find a few but not with any action or bites [...]

Have not posted much lately, been really busy with school and other stuff, but finally got a break last week and took advantage of the open weather window for this past weekend and decided to cross over for some serious fishing and fun in Bimini. We left Friday evening and returned to Miami Sunday morning, after clearing customs and checking in the hotel we set up out front for the muttons but we had missed the bite by an hour, decided to stay until 2 am, and got cutoff on two big mystery fish. Saturday morning headed south to deep drop for the day, it was a bit slow at first but then it picked up and we caught yelloweye snappers, queen snapper, a mystic grouper, big amberjacks that were released and sharks too.

FS member Night Moves is back with fantastic action from Guam. “At about 1400, we had made the full round trip down the East side and back up. We didn’t feel like gambling on the back side as the front had been so productive. I knew we would have a good shot at a Marlin if we trolled all the way back in the deep water, but to maximize or fishing time, we picked up the lines and did a little “run and gun” to Stu bank, then baby on to Galvez. We even baited up the spinning rods and had a blast bringing in a few more Mahi that followed in our hooked fish. Pulled in the lines at Galvez NE and ran back to Agat arriving at 1730. 12 hours on the water. Finished with 13 Mahi, 4 Wahoo, 2 Rainbows and the Doggie. Mahi averaged a nice size. I hope they stick around just a little longer! Hook up ratio was a little off today as we had about 10 knockdowns that didn’t stay hooked. Most were Mahi who took to the sky and did somersaults and back flips to get off. By the time we got the boat washed and cleaned up, it was 2100. After waking up at 0340 that sure makes for a long day, but great days on the water like that are worth it. Its awesome to be able to enjoy Guams beauty and catch some fish in the process!” For more on Night Moves action click here:

FS member sam50 shows why it’s worth the trip across, “the tide ended so we switched gears and put out a spread of big ballyhoo and some strip baits behind islanders. Out in 900 feet of water the long line(strip bait) gets absolutely freight-trained and is dumping the 30w international quickly, we get the angler into the harness and clear the spread, and realize the Man-in-the-Blue-Suit decided to make an appearance!! The fight lasted a while, but eventually the mono leader gave up, as we were not “equipped” for Marlin. Things slowed down and the group decided to head in for lunch. We took a stroll south on the streets and ended up at Fabian’s Conch shack and had some great eats with a few cold Kalik Golds. Afternoon fishing trip was to deep drop again, but a lack of current spoiled that plan, as the yellow eyes are very finicky, only 2 boated. We found some good looking weeds and then Mr. Frigate showed us the way. We nailed some nice phins late in the day to top it all off.

Florida Sportsman member Flyers Up made the right call and hit wahoo paydirt.

Flyers Up posted, “we made the walkers trip on Friday, had great weather arrived about 10.45 cleared customs and off to Rosies. Went 20 off to find some YF but no luck, trolled for two hours not one knock down. Saturday did some deep dropping and bottom fishing did ok some groupers and one nice mutton 14 lbs, yellow eyes and black fins and one sm mystic about 8 lbs. Sunday morning get up early to fish home wind blowing 18 gusting to 23 out of the north, not going home today so we decided go get some conch with our new friend Tiko and drink rum. Monday morning with the wind blowing out of the west SW 7 to 10 knots so we checked out and went to Matanilla reef to speed troll for wahoo where we went 7 for 9. Range in size from 30 to 65 pounds and two dolphin.”

Canadians Andy and Sonya Copeland, and their son Max, joined us for a few days at the island last week. Andy wanted to try his hand at some “Deep Sea Fishing” and boy…..was he ever introduced royaly! We showed up at Hannibal Bank at 8:30 and to my surprise there were no other fishing boats only a Tiara with some spearos working the high spot. Two days before we counted 14 sport fishing boats and 4 commercial boats all on the bank! There was a real good mark of bait on the sonar and Bonitos and Tunny’s were busting all around [...]

Headed out of Boca 6am Friday morning to a nice 11 knot wind out of the S. Seas were 1-2 almost the whole ride over till we were about 15 miles off Bimini, then they switched to 2-4. All and all the crossing was pretty much a non event. We cleared customs around 9am and began an hour long search for Kalik golds on the island. The island was pretty dead so alot of stores were closed. Sue and Joy’s had kaliks [...]

Weekend of Jan 8-9, Scott (Bloodstream), Chris (Light_Tackle) , Frank and myself loaded up and ran across to Walkers Cay targeting some Wahoo. This was to be a quick one night trip and back covering approximately 350 miles out of Sebastain in two days. Walkers Cay continues to decline as the docks are now roped off for access and nearly no place to tie up and transit to the Bahamian Customs office.